Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Ahhh, the show season is upon us. This has resulted in no time for me to post, so here's a re-cap of the last month.

Sara and Jin started off the year at the Silver Classic open show at Heartland Stables in Custer. After a hectic morning of arguing with a truck that hates wet weather and pulling in just as the show started, they ended up doing very well. Senior High Point winner of the day in fact. They got 1sts in showmanship, junior horse walk trot, english equitation, and a handful of other classes thru the day, placing in 11 of their 13 classes. And not least important was their 3rd in egg and spoon, a goofy class where you balance an egg in a spoon and ride around as the judge tells you to until all the participants drop their eggs. Silly, yes. Fun, yes.

The next weekend we were off to the Wisconsin Paint Horse Club APHA show in Jefferson. No egg and spoon there. This was serious stuff. This is where you show for points, not little $2 ribbons. The points go on the horse's permanent record, and earning points raises the value of your horse. That is if you were going to sell it. Anyway, there we are, small fish in the big pond. The big fish are world champs, or if not yet, soon to be. The big fish seem to have unlimited wealth to buy them the best horses, trucks, trailers, saddles, show clothes, custom spurs, chaps, and bits. We have a good horse, a used saddle and tack, a dented truck and a bit from Fleet Farm. And undaunted as they were, Sara and Jin held their own against these fish earning a 1st in horsemanship, 2nds in english equitation and hunter under saddle, a 3rd in western pleasure, and 4th in showmanship. Not. Too. Shabby. A highlight of her day came when one of the big fish trainers complimented her horse. She smiled so big I thought her head was gonna crack. It was a good weekend, then we found out that they won the Novice Amateur Weekend Highpoint. That made it a really good weekend.

Two weekends later we were back in Jefferson for another two day show. This was a much larger show, being dubbed the Paint-O-Rama. This drew the best APHA horses from a 4 state area. Many of them were using this show as a warm-up for the upcoming Pinto World and Paint World shows held later this month in Oklahoma and Texas, where the best in the nation compete. Again, Sara and Jin did very well with a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in showmanship, a 2nd, and two 4ths in western pleasure, and a 2nd and 3rds in hunter under saddle. Taking second place to horses of the caliber that were there is a huge accomplishment. Getting a first in showmanship was huge for the two of them. It's one of those classes that Sara just loves to do, and her hard work payed off that day. These placings resulted in Jin earning his first ROM's (Register of Merit with the APHA) in Showmanship and in HUS.